everything you have heard about this movie is true.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

I LOVE costume dramas, yet not all costume dramas are created equally. And though I would hate to criticize the directing of the wonderful Alan Rickman, whose performance in this movie was creditable, I would like to say that the movie was dis-jointed and dull. Partly because I felt that Kate Winslet's character had very few responses beyond confused or sleepy. With a female protagonist, you need to feel that you can either relate to her or, at the very least, understand her behavior. I could not relate to the sleepy, confused character portrayed by Winslet (and I do like her very much). I understand that she discovered/announced that she was pregnant during filming and I wonder if perhaps she was simply nauseous! That might explain everything!Everyone else in this film is excellent. I loved each and every character and the performances shone more brightly because Winslet was so dull. This is not based on a true story, so there's nothing interesting there. It was simply kind of meh.

Well, this movie was interesting for me as it involves the late « Severus Rogue » and the dear Kate but also because it explores the history of our french palace Versailles which is indeed a true location for stories (just visit it and you'll understand why !). In addition, we have a British opinion about french history so for a Frenchman like me, we can get something else than the usual yes propaganda ! Honestly, the movie is not that great as the pace is really slow, the romance really expected and the production a bit cheap (except for the costumes): i expected to be thrown into the XVII century and discovered the sumptuous look of Versailles, the old streets of Paris but the movie happens in this outdoor site and the interior sets are really few (Louvre, Fontainebleau)… Thus unlike the other movies that insist on baroque, grandiose, this one offers an almost intimate portray of the royals, that is at least honest when portraying their loose manners ! Rickman really excels being the king with his royal voice and restraint attitude and finds sometimes good visuals as the director. Finally, only the ultimate scene depicts the power of french royalty and it's a bit unfortunate that there wasn't more scenes like this !

"Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man." - Henry Adams"A Little Chaos" stars Alan Rickman as Louis XIV, a French king who hires landscaper Andre Le Nortre to design a lavish garden. Andre recruits Sabine de Barra (Kate Winslet) to assist him. A nonconformist, Sabine believes that gardens should reflect the "reality of nature", which she deems to be mutable, messy and largely untameable.Andre and Louis, of course, believe the opposite. They are traditionalists. They believe that France's Royal Gardens should be rigid, ordered, and emblematic of the monarch's permanence and power. In short, they believe that Man has the power to - and should - lord over all things (women, nature, whole populaces etc), whilst Sabine rejects such presumptions.After a chance meeting in a garden, Sabine brings Louis over to her way of thinking. She encourages him to reject royal customs, chase his passions and embrace death. This "woman's touch", the film suggests, would eventually lead to the French Revolution, in which the rigid arms of monarchy were challenged by disgruntled populaces. That the aristocracies of Europe only became more violent and controlling as they banded together to squelch revolutionaries, is a truth too pessimistic for this quirky little film."A Little Chaos" portrays King Louis as a kindly, elderly man who learns to relinquish control. The historical record paints him in a much more interesting light. Modern politics, accounting and accountability start with Louis, who tried to record and tabulate all transactions and expenditures which took place under his rule. Like contemporary superpowers, Louis was obsessed with micro-management and information gathering. Rather than heighten his power, though, this led to him realising just how much debt he had acquired, thanks largely to costly wars and expensive construction projects. Louis' hilarious response to impending bankruptcy was to throw away his accounting books and break up the central administration of his kingdom. With France's many accounts now impossible to unify, financial problems could then be ignored or shuffled about from ministry to ministry. In essence, Louis was cooking books and juggling junk bonds centuries before Wall Street. He had learnt that to really control populaces, you needed not old fashioned authoritarianism, but the messy, impenetrable gardens of Sabine.6/10 – Worth one viewing.

At first, many thanks to Alan Rickman for making a lavish film with a sublime cinematography and fabulous acting! The plot has its weak points and historical inaccuracy, but it is all in all a good and entertaining film: 8/10. I really liked the fact that Rickman created a very fictional female character from the 17th century who is a landscape architect (Kate Winslet) and is building a garden at Versailles for King Louis XIV (Alan Rickman). The imagination on doing so is huge! Rickman and Winslet reunite in this film after their marvellous romantic period film Sense and Sensibility which dates back to 1995 and they still have a great chemistry together. I really liked their shared scenes and dialogues, it gives a warm touch to the storyline.Kate Winslet really shows here that no matter how many actresses want, or properly said, get to play roles in period dramas, she is still the number 1 in these kind of films. She shows great emotions in her eyes, her attitude, walking, looking, speaking and her abilities of crying like an old soul. It is a real delight to watch her and she is one of these women who will never get old, because her expression will always remain young and alive. There is a scene of desperate trauma which is an Oscar-worthy performance by her.Period dramas actually present a great opportunity to be able to understand the situations and conflicts between people and history of old times better, IF it is truthfully made. These kind of films should respond to women as well as men and it shouldn't contain boring dialogues. à propos boring, if anyone has had the wish to watch the 2014 version of Madame Bovary, I really highly NOT recommend it. I will rescue you all by NOT recommending it for you to watch it, since it is inadvisable. It is such a wrongly made and terrible film with an extremely awful, untalented, pale and dull actress, you can't even imagine. I recommend you all instead to watch Far from the Madding Crowd (2015), which is also starring Matthias Schoenaerts and the great Michael Sheen.Matthias Schoenaerts, who is playing here a landscape architect shares great chemistry with Winslet. He has the ability to look enamoured at a woman&makes the audience believe that he is in love with her. He has a calm appearance, which I like about him and although he looks too modern for period dramas, he fits to lovestruck character roles. Apart from Rickman's versatile acting, a huge thumbs up to Stanley Tucci who can pull off every role perfectly. He is an insanely good actor and deserves more lead roles! It's a pity that this film got limited release, so that I couldn't watch it at the cinema, but since I got the blu-ray, I could enjoy the wonderful colourful cinematography of it!